


a part of me like anatomy

by goreallegore



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 07:53:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6974290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goreallegore/pseuds/goreallegore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exams are tough, but it’s ok cause Harry’s got Niall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a part of me like anatomy

“As you all know the exam for this chapter is coming up on Monday and I’ll be hosting a review session tomorrow night if you have any questions regarding the content you can ask then or email me or see me in my office hours as you already know. That’s all for now, have a lovely weekend and happy studying!” Professor Robert cheers.

A collective thud of books closing and a synchronized screech of chairs rolling back fills the room, famished students stuffing their already overflowing backpacks hurriedly, trying their best to make it out of the lecture hall before anyone else. It is Thursday night meaning the school dining hall is having a themed meal and tonight is Italian. Everyone loves Italian, Harry figures.

The hall is fairly empty by the time he’s tucked away his anatomy textbook, rolled up his laptop charger and placed it vertical to his laptop sleeve, though the zip on his bag doesn’t budge when tries to close it. In midst of his struggle he hears someone clear their throat catching him off guard and prompting him to jerk backwards into their chest. A pair of hands securely steady him, and he regains his lost balance. He turns around to thank the person but.

Harry’s seen him. Of course, he has. Harry knows him too. He’s one of those people that everyone always seems to know, you know the type with a bright personality and an even brighter laugh. His words feel like stone in his throat, heavy and unable to come out, but the boy isn’t fazed. He pushes up his glasses up from the bridge of his nose and says, “hey there.”

“Hello,” Harry manages, not nervous just. Surprised.

Niall brings a hand to nape of his neck rubbing there and fixing his eyes down at the seemingly interesting gum stuck to the edge of the desk, scudding his sneakers against the coarse carpet.

“Professor Robert’s said that you’re one of the brightest students in the class and you’ve recently applied to work at the academic resource center so I was sort of hoping if you could do me a favor?”

Now on surface, with the soft blond hair and clear blue eyes, Niall doesn’t seem the type to kick Harry’s ass for homework but even from the sparse observance skills that Harry possesses he can see the curve of Niall’s biceps under his sweatshirt. And if we’re counting days till graduation then he might have just enough time for facial reconstruction. Good thing he’s been frugal this term so money won’t be an issue either.

Harry braces himself, fisting his hands, and raising them the slightest when Niall intervenes again. “Was like hoping we could be study buddies. Only if you’re cool with it, of course.”

Harry drops his hands down more baffled than ever. Hesitantly he nods, “Yeah. Ok, sure.” So, maybe this isn’t High School and he isn’t going to get his ass kicked for sleeping with the head cheerleader and having the highest scores on the SAT’s

“Cool,” Niall grins. When he doesn’t make any move to get out of the way Harry carries on, “I’m guessing you’d need my number…?”

He grins again. Jesus, does this fucking guy ever stop smiling? He only has one dimple and it is on his left cheek which annoys Harry for no reason whatsoever. He doesn’t need an existential crisis over a dimple when his first draft for his philosophy paper is still very much unwritten on his desk back in his dorm room.

He turns around ripping off a small piece of paper from his notebook and jots down his number from memory. With a rush in his step he hands the slip of paper, putting on the backpack and exiting out of the hall without another word.

–

The study room has one overhead light which is flickering every ten minutes supplying as a distraction and an annoyance simultaneously. The lead running out of his pencil is the last straw and he lets out an aggravated huff, pushing back his rolling chair into the wall, and kneading his eyes with the heel of his palms. The door to the room opens and a soft voice pulls him out of his distress, “brought coffee.”

Niall’s wearing a grey crewneck that has the word ‘Q U I E T’ printed in black across his chest along with a darker grey color of sweatpants that almost look metallic the way light is reflecting on it. His hair is flat and cut on his forehead but the sides have been buzzed making him sport a tone of blonde and brown. In his hands he’s carrying a tray with two cups of coffee, a stack of napkins messily shoved on top of them, and in the other a brown paper bag that distinctly smells like French fries. As if on cue Harry’s stomach rumbles and his mouth salivates – he’d been hungry all this time and he hadn’t even realized.

Niall barely pushes the bag in his direction and he’s already jumping towards it, plucking out his set of fries and devouring them silently – the only sound being him licking his fingers in-between fries. Once he’s exhausted his own food he eyes Niall’s, a cheeseburger that Harry hadn’t spotted earlier and his own side of fries. He doesn’t know how because Niall’s intently reading the anatomy book he’d pulled out as soon as he walked in but he notices Harry looking at food. A slight nudge and he passes his own share to him.

Harry’s heart leaps at the gesture, graciously accepting the burger and eating it down to crumbs, and then turning his attention to his own coursework except everything just looks the _same_ and sounds the _same_. And it’s nearing midnight and his horrible sleeping schedule from the week is catching up to him and there’s an insanely beautiful boy seated right next to him wafting a sinful aftershave in his general direction. This is cruel. He’s supposed to be helping Niall.

His little self-analysis is interrupted when Niall looks up, his lips wet thanks to the coffee he’d been sipping, “so where is the _tarsus_ again?”

Harry rolls his eyes, gently toeing Niall’s sneaker clad foot, “your foot.”

Niall smiles, knowingly. “See. You know.”

Harry catches on to what he’s saying, “I do but not all of it. ‘Sides, I’m supposed to be helping you.”

Niall swivels his chair around so he can face Harry properly, “how about we say the names out loud? Because obviously it helps you out and I’m a practical man. So as long as I know where the bone is I’ll remember it.”

Sound plan, Harry thinks nodding. Niall pulls his chair closer to Harry, their knees bumping against one another sending another soaring leap to Harry’s heart. The flickering light no longer his biggest concern. From the corner of his eye he can see the librarian turning off the unwanted lights in the outer hall, passing by with a smile on her face, and Harry can’t help but gulp down the saliva building in his throat.

Niall pulls on the corner of Harry’s book, “alright, let’s start with the cranial bones.”

“Okay.”

Niall moves his hand to Harry’s forehead, gingerly placing atop his hair, “what’s this?”

“Occipital bone,” Harry proudly states. Niall moves his hand back and Harry focuses his eyes on the freckle above the right corner of Niall’s lips, it sits there unknowing and unbothered and he wonders if someone has ever kissed it. If someone has mapped out all of Niall’s freckles, the one’s peeking from under his jumper, like stars spread across a constellation. And he recites with every careful hand movement, “Parietal, Frontal and Temporal.”

A soft smile tugs at Niall’s lips, his hands moving down to Harry’s face, the rough pad of his thumb rubbing the bones under the cavity of his eyes, and once again with every movement Harry recites, “Sphenoid, ethmoid, nasal, lacrimal, zygomatic, palatine, vomer.”

Niall tentatively cups Harry’s jaw, his seat sliding forward with his weight, and rubs along the curve of Harry’s jaw, “maxilla, and mandible.”

There is a flutter in Harry’s chest and he hopes that the drowning silence engulfing them is loud enough to wash over his beating heart, but the moment passes and Niall pulls back his hands dropping to Harry’s shoulders, “Clavicle and scapula.”

Then brushes down his arm, “Humerus, ulna and radius.”

Niall picks up Harry’s hand from where it was lying limp in his lap, stroking his pulse point – feeling the frenzy under his touch –, “Carpal, metacarpal and phalanges.”

He brings down his hand carefully, and brushes his own hand along Harry’s thigh, “Femur.”

Instead of moving down, Niall moves up but before doing so he looks up, tentative and careful like he’s asking if it’s ok. Harry nods because it is and before Niall even reaches Harry’s Coxal, Harry himself leaps forward.

Niall’s seat stumbles back as he falls down to the ground on his back with Harry flat on him, his head buried in his chest, “you did that on purpose.”

A soft chuckle reverberates under him, his body shaking along Niall’s as they fall into a symphony of giggles. Once they’ve calmed down, Harry’s ear pressed to Niall’s chest, the blond boy speaks up, “reckon’ it be alright if I took you out for dinner then?”

Harry hums noncommittedly, counting Niall’s heartbeat. 1, 2, 3. “Don’t date,” he supplies.

Niall doesn’t answer which isn’t unsurprising because this happens more often than not. Harry meets someone nice and they want something more and when Harry doesn’t concede they leave. It’s alright. Just another boy. The pressure in his chest is telling a different story though.

“Yet,” Niall offers. “’Sides, who said anything about date? I was just asking you for dinner, mate.”

Harry picks his head up, looking at the bow of Niall’s lips and then back at his eyes – clear like water. Confident. “Don’t know how I feel about the footie captain taking me out for steak,” Harry debates.

Niall knits his eyebrows together, offended. “Very presumptuous of you Mr. styles to think I’d take you to the butcher’s.”

“Yeah, then what did you have in mind?” Harry challenges.

“Well,” Niall wraps his arms around Harry’s waist and they both say in sync, “illium, ischium, pubis!”

Harry guffaws, gripping the seam of the neck of Niall’s jumper, “anyway, you were saying?”

“Right. Was planning to take you down to the harbor and have a little picnic, could make sandwiches and fruit bowl. Oh, and I make excellent cheesecake.”

“Soccer bro who can cook, heh?” Harry iterates sounding impressed, his fingers having trailed down to the little wisps of hair at the nape of Niall’s neck. They’re unbearably soft and it’s making his chest tight.

“Could kiss you after. All sweet and slow,” Niall admits, a trickle of blush spreading across his cheeks, his freckles more prominent.

“Could kiss me now,” Harry teases, but Niall doesn’t make a move. “A gentlemen never makes a move without properly courting first,” Niall replies.

“Good thing we’re not gentlemen then,” Harry stifles a laugh, ducking down and catching Niall’s lips with his own. Their books forgotten on the table and their backpacks discarded on the sides.

–

“Despite the challenging content many of you rose to the occasion and proved to do very well on this exam,” the professor says.

Harry scans his own paper, going over the mistakes he made and mentally scolding himself. Thankfully, there weren’t many and he still managed to get an A. He looks over his shoulder where Niall is sitting in the back row slumped over his desk. From here it looks like he didn’t do too hot making Harry feel a spark of guilt. If they’d studied more and well.

“However, there were some that were lost in some parts especially the free response questions. I have taken the liberty to post an extra credit assignment on blackboard to bring your grade up. If you need any help you can contact me or ask one of your peer tutors like Mr. Horan back there,” pointing to where Niall’s sitting. His eyes grow a size too big and Harry can’t believe his ears. The rest of the lecture passes by in a flash and as soon as the professor stops talking Harry gets out of his seat and marches his way to Niall.

“You’re a peer tutor?” Harry demands, taking in Niall’s uncomfortable stance. He looks like he wants the ground to open up and swallow him whole. “What did you even get on your test?”

Niall tries to grab his exam first but Harry is faster and snatches it off the table reading the circled _100_ marked in red. “You got a full score? You lied to me!”

He rubs the nape of his neck – a nervous habit, Harry figures. “Technically, no,” Niall explains. “I said I wanted to be study buddies never said I was doing poorly in the class.”

Harry opens his mouth to argue but has nothing to say, until. “Well, we certainly can’t be study buddies.”

“Yeah?” Niall repeats, biting his lip.

“Not when you smell like that, no. Think you should work on that other idea you had instead,” Harry tries to be subtle. Tries to remain calm.

“I have many ideas which one exactly are you referring to?”

Harry knows what Niall is doing but today he’s wearing a black-string hoodie and a plain white tee under it and there is a smear of chapstick on his lips making them seem red and alright. Ok. He gives up.

He pushes his turtleneck down trying to roll it over his chin, “just y’know. Harbor stuff. Not ‘soccer bro’ stuff.”

“Are you asking me to ask you out on a date?” Niall tilts his head, hooking his forefinger through Harry’s belt loop and pulling him in.

“Are you asking me?” Harry’s voice coming out muffled.

“Dunno, I don’t date so that’d be inconvenient,” Niall mimics in Harry’s distinct posh drawl.

“Oh,” Harry looks up, his heart plummeting at the statement. But instead of stepping back like he would’ve done in the past, “Will you go out with me?”

Niall leans forward pressing his lips against Harry’s chapped one’s and even with his eyes closed Harry can tell Niall’s smiling into the kiss.


End file.
